


Warning: May Cause Dizziness

by honey_wheeler



Series: Warning Labels [8]
Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Alternate Canon, F/M, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 20:51:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10670523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_wheeler/pseuds/honey_wheeler
Summary: Part 8. Set duringBoys & GirlsandValentine's Day.





	1. Boys & Girls

**Author's Note:**

> Part 8 of [Warning Labels](http://archiveofourown.org/series/707550), a season 2 Office fic series with the premise of "What if they were doing it all along?" Originally posted in 2007. Thanks to Annakovsky, Kyra, and Obsession_Inc for brainstorming and beta.

When Jim was a freshman in college, his roommate Sean went completely crazy over a girl; called her at all hours, bought her presents, convinced himself that when she said “I think we should take a break,” she meant, “I think you should prove your love,” and that when she said “I have a restraining order,” she meant, “Please come over tonight.” Jim called Sean’s parents to bail him out and talked to his friends about how crazy his roommate was and swore he’d never be that nuts over a girl.

Lately, though, Jim’s starting to wonder. His brain has turned into a roller coaster. The kind that makes you throw up. He spends half of his day parsing everything Pam says for subtext. He spends the other half hating himself for it. He’s even started leaving little things on her desk: a pack of the gum that she likes, a comic clipped out of the paper that will make her laugh. He's got a system for how often he's allowed to do it, a complicated formula practically involving the quadratic equation, so that it won't seem like it's too much or like he's a creepy stalker going after a woman who's clearly told him she's not interested. This is what he's come to. Maybe he should call Sean in whatever nut bin he undoubtedly was committed to and commiserate.

Mark’s sick of him talking about it. He’s just started parroting Jim now, echoing whatever conclusion Jim reaches. _You’re right, she’s totally flirting with you, Jim. You’re right, she doesn’t love you, you should find someone else. You’re right, the fact that she stole some of your chips at lunch is totally laden with symbolism. No, I’m not tired of talking about Pam. Yes, I **am** being sarcastic._ Jim’s had to force himself not to start every conversation at home with, “So tell me what this sounds like to you.”

Unfortunately that leaves him alone in his head a lot, and his head’s turning into a pretty scary place to be.

*****

He’s loitering around Pam’s desk. Again. He swore to himself that he was going to stop doing that. He’s got three clients to check in with before lunch, so he doesn’t really have the time to be chatting anyway. And if he’s at her desk, the camera is too, which means adopting his _Don’t Look At Me, I Just Work Here_ Jim persona, which he’s starting to hate. But he keeps thinking about that Friday night, about her saying she loved him, and how for one split second – for the tiniest, best second of his life – it seemed like she really meant it. He keeps thinking about her head on his shoulder and the smell of her hair when he kissed her after she drove him home and all of those messages on his voicemail, and he finds himself digging through her candy bowl instead of doing his job and imitating what he would act like if he weren’t in love with her. Story of his life.

“Pamboni!” Michael barks as he sails through the door. 

"Ew," Pam whispers to Jim before turning to face Michael. 

“What’s on the slate for today?” he asks.

“Jan’ll be here at eleven for the Women in the Workplace seminar. And she said to remind you about the meeting with the CFO in New York next Tuesday and that you’re to be on your best behavior.” She stresses the last two words, as if she’s talking to a disobedient child. Jim covers a smile with his hand. He imagines Jan said it the exact same way. At the mention of Jan’s name, Michael straightens his posture, his hand drifting to his tie to smooth it nervously.

“Jan called?” he asks, studying the memo slip Pam hands him with forced casualness. “Did she say anything about me?” Jim snorts and turns it into a cough.

“What…I just told you.” Michael looks at Pam blankly. “About the CFO meeting?”

Michael clears his throat and looks up, gives the camera a tight smile. “Very well, I will be in…my office. Doing…stuff.” He moves towards his office and the camera trails him.

“When is Jan getting here again?” he calls back.

“Eleven!” Pam’s voice carries a hint of exasperation. Michael waves his hand vaguely and disappears into his office, the camera guy scurrying in behind him. The door closes with a click and they see them setting up for an interview. Pam rolls her eyes and shrugs.

So…big meeting at corporate on Tuesday, then,” Jim says.

“Yep.”

“You do realize what this means, don’t you?”

Her brows knit. “What?”

“Michael. In New York. On Tuesday.”

“Okay, and?”

“Tuesday is Valentine’s Day.” He takes a peppermint out of the bowl and drops it on the top of the desk, holding it under his fingertip and sliding it back and forth over the laminate.

“Oh.”

“And he’ll be in New York. With Jan.” He punctuates each word with a swish of the mint across the desk. Her eyes widen as his meaning sinks in.

“Oh! Oh wow.”

“I know. _Awk_ -ward.”

Pam cringes. “You don’t think he’d… _do_ anything, do you?”

“Like embarrass himself horribly with some overt declaration of undying love?” Jim asks, batting the peppermint between his hands. “Yeah, I’d say the odds of that are fair to guaranteed.”

“I wonder if he got her a Valentine,” Pam muses, overlapping the edges of her cardigan across her chest with her hands, as if the idea alone makes her uncomfortable.

“You choo-choo-choose me?” Jim suggests. He knows it’s one of her favorite Simpsons episodes. And he knows Roy never gets it when she tries to quote The Simpsons to him. He’s become someone who tailors his humor to gain points against the guy whose fiancée he’s sleeping with. Fuck. He hates himself. But then Pam giggles and he doesn’t give a shit, because she seems happier than she has in a while.

“You can actually pinpoint the second when his heart rips in half,” he continues. She’s still laughing, holding her hand against her stomach as if it hurts. He grins and calls himself ten kinds of idiot.

*****

He catches her attention during the seminar and she rolls her eyes. Interesting how it doesn’t matter which executive is in there; eye-rolling will be induced regardless. He does a little of his own when Michael decides to have a spontaneous seminar too, making them gather in a circle and clap. He’s not surprised when Jan kicks them out and Michael ushers them out the door.

“If we have to do trust falls, I’m quitting,” Ryan mutters under his breath as they file out.

Turns out there’s nothing like spending a day with Roy to make Jim’s head spin. Who knew you could feel guilty and sorry for a guy at the same time that you wanted to punch his teeth in? Roy calls him a good guy, says he knows that Jim’s crush is history, and Jim feels ill. But then he complains about Pam _talking_ of all things (and if Roy thinks that listening to Pam is a hardship Jim would like to a) take her off his hands, and b) introduce him to Katy and her endless chatter about shopping) and Jim just feels irritated. He wants to say, “Oh yeah? Well she does a hell of a lot more than _talk_ with me, you jackass, so shove _that_ in your Poconos,” but he does still have _some_ sense of self-preservation. 

He has to wonder, though. If this is the guy Pam spends ten years of her life with, if she can choose someone like Roy, then how could she ever feel anything for a guy like Jim?

Kevin corners him late in the afternoon. “So you dodged a bullet with Roy back there,” he says, darting his eyes around as if Roy might be lurking behind a stack of boxes waiting to attack.

“Mmhmm,” Jim murmurs noncommittally.

“You know I’ll back you up, Jim,” he continues earnestly. “But if anything happens with you and Pam-”

“Nothing’s going to happen, Kev,” Jim interrupts, and it hurts to say it, as if he’s just realizing it now instead of for the hundredth time.

*****

He makes a break for it after lunch, ostensibly to check his messages, but mostly to get away from Roy and his twin desires to apologize to him and deck him. His mother would be dismayed at her son harboring such violent thoughts. There’s nothing important on his voicemail, so he hangs up and steels himself to return to the belly of the beast, but Pam comes out to catch him before he leaves. 

When she tells him about the internship, he can hear the desire for approval in her voice. He thinks it sounds great, and he tells her so, and she smiles and he can almost imagine their life together. She told him first, is all he can think. She wanted him to know before anyone. That has to mean something, right?

*****

She’s in the break room when he goes to get some coffee, and he knows that she’s not taking the internship. He can tell in the way she’s holding herself: defeated, broken. She’s dull, lifeless Pam in a cardigan again, with a dead-end job and a deadbeat fiancé and he knows without asking that she’s not doing it.

“Do you have something you want to say?” she challenges, and it’s all he can do not to say everything that’s in his head. How Roy’s strangling the life out of her, how she deserves more, how he loves her to distraction and would do anything to make her happy, even outlandish things like talk to her and take her on dates even if they go out to dinner every single night and encourage her to do something that makes her happy for _once_. 

But he doesn’t. He's way too nervous and angry for a conversation about some internship, and he knows it's not the internship they're really fighting about. Every conversation they have now is loaded, like they’ve become walking, talking, fucked up metaphors. So when Pam defiantly says she's fine with her choices, his stomach turns to lead and he has trouble breathing. Even Sean couldn't misinterpret that. 

He doesn’t say goodbye when he leaves that night. He calls Brenda on his cell and loudly talks about their upcoming date and doesn’t even look back over his shoulder when he walks out the door, even though he wants to.

 

*

_Simpsons quotes from the episode “I Love Lisa”_


	2. Valentine's Day

Pam knows it’s going to be a bad day as soon as the roses show up. At first she thinks they’re from Roy and she’s both pleased and annoyed. The arrangement is _huge_ – she can’t even see past it – and they must have cost a fortune, money they’re supposed to be saving for the wedding. But they _are_ pretty, so she smiles at the delivery man, reaches for the card. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the thought pops into her head that maybe Jim sent them, and she’s ashamed at how giddy the idea makes her. But the card, doesn’t say “Pam,” not in Roy’s handwriting, not in Jim’s. It says “Phyllis.” It’s stupid really. She can’t be annoyed at not getting flowers she didn’t want in the first place.

“Phyllis,” she calls, as if she’s drawing raffle tickets. Phyllis beams, her cheeks pinking as she gets up to collect the flowers. She’s practically glowing. Pam’s never glowed in her whole life. It seems unfair.

When the tulips show up, they’re just salt in the wound. The fucking stuffed bear? Lemon juice.

*****

The day’s only gotten worse. Gifts keep streaming in for Phyllis, one an hour at least. Her desk is starting to look like a florist’s shop. Pam’s got nothing from Roy. And nothing from Jim, she can’t help but think. Which is stupid, Jim doesn’t owe her anything. They’re just friends, that’s all, there’s no reason for him to give her anything. 

It’s just that he’s given her a silly Valentine every year they’ve worked together. Every year she looks forward to it for days. She still has every one he’s given her, in a box she keeps at the back of her closet. And she always finds them on her desk first thing when she comes in, but it’s three o’clock and he hasn’t given her anything. He’s barely even looked at her all day, and every time they’ve talked it’s been polite and strained, a parody of their normal, easy conversations. She can’t really blame him either, not after that conversation about the internship that wasn’t really about the internship at all. It shouldn’t matter so much, it’s just a stupid valentine. The edges of her monitor swim, so she blinks and furtively swipes at her eyes with her knuckle. Must be dusty in here.

When Dwight herds her into the break room and asks for her advice on what to give Angela, it’s just about all she can take. The idea of going back to her desk and working like normal as if her life doesn’t completely suck makes her feel vaguely ill. Jim finds her there fifteen minutes later, nursing a soda and watching Dwight and Angela through the blinds as they pretend not to talk to each other. She’s starting to find their secret, creepy love strangely endearing. God. She needs to see a psychiatrist. Or a lobotomist.

“Hey,” he offers. He pokes through the change in his pocket, feeds it into the vending machine. 

“Hi,” she returns, surprised and relieved that he’s actually talking to her. She forgets how long days can be when they’re not on good terms with each other. He pulls up a chair and opens his soda. “So you’re playing poker tonight?” she asks to fill the awkward silence that’s settled. He’s kind of avoiding looking at her, so she looks down at her hands.

“Nah, everyone bailed.”

“Oh.” She studies her nails as if what she should say next is written on them with nail polish. Her cuticles look pretty rough. She should probably spring for a manicure.

“Yeah, just me and _When Harry Met Sally_ on _Lifetime_. It’s gonna be off the hook.”

She smiles, chances a look up. He’s stretching, his arms up over his head. It makes his shirt ride up, baring the skin of his stomach, the dark smattering of hair disappearing under his belt. She tries not to remember what they were doing the last time she saw that stomach. “I bet.”

“What about you?” he asks, dropping his arms and grabbing his soda. 

“Oh. Well, you know…”

“Right,” he says. He doesn’t look up, just plucks at the tab on his soda can with his index finger. It makes sour, springy noises that set her teeth on edge, but she doesn’t ask him to stop. As sad as it is, part of her is hoping he’ll say something; that he misses her, that he wishes things were different. But he doesn’t. He just shakes his head, shrugs nonchalantly. “Right, stupid question.” Before she can say anything he stands, his chair clattering back with his abrupt movement. “Talk to you later, okay?”

“Okay.” The door whumps softly in its frame for a few seconds after he leaves. She sits in the break room another 15 minutes. Just because she’s tired, really, not because she doesn’t trust herself not to cry if she goes back to her desk right now.

*****

When evening rolls around she doesn’t want to go home. There’s no dinner with candlelight waiting for her, no flowers or candy or presents. Just Roy. Roy and his stupid best-sex-of-her-life. _You love Roy,_ a tiny voice in her head argues. _And you hate romantic dinners and candlelight and lame Valentine’s Day candy._ But that’s not the point, she reasons with herself. It’s the principle of the thing. And just…Bob Vance bought out F.A.O.Schwartz. Bob Vance made Phyllis radiantly happy. Pam could do without the F.A.O. Schwartz, but she’s starting to wonder if she’s going to go her whole life without the radiantly happy. It’s like she’s been waiting and waiting for it to happen, for everything to click into place. First she thought the engagement would do it. And then, when it didn’t happen, she figured it was because they hadn’t set a date. But she’s engaged now, the date’s set in stone, the invitations are ordered and the reception hall is booked. So why isn’t she happy?

Roy drops off the keys before he leaves. She’d told him she needed to run some last minute errands, take care of some paperwork Michael left with her, and he accepted unquestioningly, said he’d catch a ride with Darryl. His trust should be a relief after everything she’s done, and it is, but it’s also annoying. Like he can’t even be bothered to know she’s cheating on him. That she feels…something for someone else.

She does every task she can think of around the office before leaving – switches off the coffee pot, shreds some documents, kidnaps Dwight’s bobblehead and leaves a ransom note. There’s nothing more to do without feeling ridiculous, so she shrugs into her coat and heads downstairs, Roy’s keys in hand. The car is freezing. She starts it and turns the heater on full blast, shivering when the cold air hits her fingers, and checks her voicemail while she waits for the car to warm up. There’s a message from Roy: _Pammy, we’re out of beer, could you pick up a case on your way home?_ Great. Stopping at the store for beer on Valentine’s Day. That’s true romance. She snaps the phone shut in disgust and puts the car into gear.

The radio’s been busted for weeks so her only company is her thoughts. She thinks about her life and Roy. About Jim and how disappointed he was when she turned down the internship. About his date. She wonders what it was like, if he kissed his date goodnight and touched her in that careful way of his. If he really liked her. If he said, “We should do this again,” and meant it.

She pulls into a convenience store parking lot. _Can’t forget Roy’s beer,_ she thinks bitterly. The store is deserted, just one lone clerk flipping through a magazine behind the counter. Pam heads to the back, grabs one of the big cases of beer – not the kind that Roy likes, though, which she realizes is childish – and brings it to the counter. She has to clear her throat twice before the cashier lowers her magazine, one of those trashy ones that always have Angelina Jolie or Britney Spears on the cover. The cashier sighs as if Pam’s being unreasonable and rings up the beer.

“That’ll be $18.27,” the cashier tells her in a bored voice. Pam pulls a twenty out of her wallet.

“Hang on,” she says. “I have the change.” She puts the bill on the counter and rummages in her coat pockets. Her right hand brushes against something unexpected, a piece of paper where there shouldn’t be one; she never keeps receipts in her pockets. Confused, she pulls the mystery object out to examine as she grabs a handful of change from her other pocket. It’s too much, way more than she needs for the beer, but she drops it all on the counter with the twenty, beyond caring, focused only on the red envelope she holds now in her suddenly shaking hand. Her heart’s seized up in her chest like she’s about to have a coronary. 

_Okay, calm down, Pam,_ she thinks, forcing herself to grab the beer and walk out the door. “Hey, lady, your change!” the cashier calls, but Pam barely even hears her. Once she’s in the car, the beer dropped carelessly in the backseat, she takes a deep breath and flips the envelope over. There it is, her name in Jim’s carelessly graceful scrawl. She exhales, her breath clouding in the cold air. This is what hope feels like, she remembers.

She slides her thumb under the flap, taking care not to rip the paper. Normally she tears into things like this. She’s never been one to save envelopes or wrapping paper. But this is…this is different. It’s a valentine. A kid’s valentine, just like the ones they used to give out in grade school. As soon as it clears the envelope, she laughs. A train chugs across the front, saying “I choo-choo-choose you!” She flips the card over. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Pam,” it says. “Yours, Jim.” She reads it three times and imagines all the things it could mean and then she’s crying. 

It's like she drives to his house on auto-pilot. She finds herself turning left out of the parking lot instead of right without thinking, taking Main all the way to Pine instead of turning on Linden. She parks in front of his house, tries to convince herself to go home even as she's twisting the key in the ignition and locking the door and nervously walking up the path. His car is out front. For a second she thinks about his roommate, but then she remembers that Jim's by himself, and knowing that he's alone acts on her like a magnet. She watches her finger reach out as if it belongs to someone else, watches it press the white disk set in the stucco.

As soon as she hears the bell reverberating inside the house she wants to run. "Do kids still play Ding-Dong-Ditch ‘em?" she imagines him asking the next day as she laughs uncomfortably and shrugs. But her feet seem rooted to the spot. It’s all she can do not to pass out, actually, so running seems out of the question. Muffled thumps come from the other side of the door. There’s a crash, the sound of things falling to the floor, and she hears him curse and dear god, what is she doing here? She should run. She should run now, far away, and never come back.

Then the door is swinging open and it’s too late, it’s always too late, because there he is, staring at her with his mouth slightly open. He’s still in his work clothes, shoes and everything, and he’s holding a bunch of unopened mail in his hand. More envelopes are scattered across the floor behind him, spilling off the top of table next to the door, a lamp on its side next to them. That must have been the crash.

“Pam,” he says, and she wrenches her eyes back to his. She can see _what are you doing here?_ written on his face, but he doesn’t say anything more, just leans against the door and watches her. She holds out her hand to show the valentine, the little train grinning manically between her fingers. His eyes flicker down and then back up. His face is unreadable and she’s feeling that urge to run again.

He doesn’t say anything, just looks at her long and hard, so long that her stomach sinks and she thinks if she turns tail now, she might be able to make it back to her car before she starts blubbering again. But then he shifts, the door scraping as he pulls it open wider and stands aside to allow her in. She only hesitates a moment before stepping forward over the threshold; she’s too afraid he’ll change his mind. Hell, she’s too afraid _she’ll_ change _her_ mind.

There’s barely enough room for her to get through the door, and not even enough room for her to pass him. His body crowds her as he pushes the door shut over her head, boxing her in. Her eyes are fixed straight ahead, on the base of his throat where his collarbones meet. She wants to touch that spot with her tongue, to climb inside him.

The door clicks with finality behind her. He’s still leaning against it, his arm brushing her ear. She turns her head and presses her forehead into the crook of his elbow, closing her eyes and trying to drown out the little voice in her head that’s telling her this is too real now, she’s cheating in a way that seems worse than before.

She wants him to hold her, to touch his lips to her hair and whisper her name, say _we’ll get through this, Pam, I promise._ But he doesn’t; he fists his hand in her hair, tugs to tilt her face up to his. Strips off her coat and lets it fall to the floor.

She tries to kiss him, says _Jim_ in a voice that’s frankly pleading. But he evades her mouth, latching onto her neck and sucking hard, instead. She wants to squirm away, protest that this isn’t what she wanted. Except she knows she doesn’t have a right to want anything at all, and that this is her fault for letting him think that this _is_ what she wants: a quick fuck, a fling on the side before she gets married. No strings attached, no emotions involved.

To keep her heart from breaking she pulls away, winds her fingers in the front of his shirt and tugs. The buttons fly off, clicking across the floor as they land. His eyes widen and a ghost of a smile plays across his face, like he’s impressed.

Then he’s hauling her up like she weighs nothing. Instinctively, her legs wrap around his waist, her shoes coming off with the motion and clattering on the floor. He grabs her ass, boosts her up, and suddenly she’s taller than him, looking down for once instead of up. It’s a weird sensation. She grabs his face in her hands, stares at him as if to memorize this one moment before it all goes bad, before everything she doesn’t dare allow herself to want comes crashing down around her ears. 

He’s not gentle; her back almost slams into the wall. His mouth is on hers but he’s not really kissing her. He just holds her mouth with his. It’s in sharp contrast to his hands, which are moving over her body, touching her breasts and her stomach, stealing under her skirt to press against her clit.

It feels strangely empty, detached. Like she just got back from the dentist and she’s full of Novocain. She bucks against his hand, twisting to find the right spot. It eludes her and she groans in frustration. He takes that as a different kind of groan and answers in kind. 

Then his fingers are hooked in her underwear, pulling hard. The fabric rips, the sound of it carrying over their strained breathing, and he tosses the ruined garment away, sliding his hand between them to work at his fly. She should think it’s hot but it kind of just makes her want to cry. His knuckles rub against her and she grinds down against his hand, desperate to feel something. He stops fumbling at his zipper and flips his hand to curve his fingers into her. Why isn’t this working for her? It _always_ works for her.

“Pants off,” she reminds him helpfully. 

“I’m trying but you’re making it hard,” he grits out. She laughs, a high, nervous sound, and he smiles a little. “If you say ‘That’s what she said,’ I’m stopping and kicking you out,” he pants.

“Liar,” she challenges. 

Finally he gets his pants off and he presses into her, hard, her back pushing rhythmically against the wall. She braces herself, her hands out on either side for purchase. All he can say is _fuck, Pam, fuck_. She knows he’s close – strange how they really haven’t done this very many times but she can still read his body – and she’s not even halfway there. She moves against the wall, trying to push back against him in just the right way. The restless movement of her arms catches the edge of a framed picture and sends it crashing to the floor, the glass shattering. 

His body tenses against her and she grips his arms, biting his shoulder in frustration when he comes with a hoarse sound. She can feel the cotton of his shirt on her tongue. The weight of his body pins her to the wall as he slumps against her, panting and sweaty. Her body is tight and tense, close but still a million miles away. All she wants to do now is go home and take care of it. She can’t here, not in front of him. It sounds ridiculous, really, because just a few weeks ago she came on her living room carpet with his mouth on her in front of the open windows. He’s certainly seen her more vulnerable than this. But something about it feels different, and she can’t.

“Pam,” he breathes. “You didn’t…I’m sorry, I’ll-”

“No, it’s fine,” she says, pushing gently against his shoulders. If he’s sweet to her now even one tiny bit, she knows she’ll lose it completely.

“I can…let me just-”

“It’s fine, really, don’t-” Her pushing grows more insistent.

“Pam, c’mon-”

“Jim, it’s all right. Don’t, just-” He works his hand between them and she tenses when he touches the skin of her stomach. “It’s fine!” she snaps, and he freezes. “It’s fine, just put me down.” He pulls back at her tone, looks almost wounded, like a boy who’s had his hand slapped unexpectedly.

“Okay, sorry,” he mumbles, pulling away from the wall, slipping out of her. He starts to let her slide down but then catches her. “Glass,” he says. “There’s glass all over the floor.” He adjusts his grip on her thighs and steps back over the shards that crunch under his shoes, moving on to the soft carpet before letting her feet hit the ground.

“Thanks,” she whispers, feeling bad that even though she snapped at him, he was still worried about her cutting her feet. She smoothes her skirt down over her hips as he turns away and fastens his pants. Her underwear is clearly a lost cause. She leans down to grab the mangled fabric and hunts for a trash can, trying not to feel ridiculous and, well…trashy. Like a girl who stops off for sex against a wall before heading home to her fiancé on Valentine’s Day. She finds one under the hall table and leans over to throw in her tattered underwear, hesitating before pushing them underneath the empty envelopes and old receipts. She wonders how she’s going to explain the missing underwear to Roy, then realizes he’ll just be glad she removed a step. When she straightens, Jim’s holding out her shoes and she stoops again to pull them on. Then an awful thought occurs to her.

“We…we didn’t use anything.” He looks for confused for a moment, and then he realizes. 

“God. Pam, I’m sorry. I should’ve- I’m sorry.”

“I was there too,” she reminds him, somewhat tartly. “I could have remembered a condom, it’s not just you.”

“I know.” He scrubs his hand across his face, pushes his sweaty hair back from his eyes. Suddenly he looks tired. Older. “You’re…you’re taking something, though, right?”

“Yeah. I mean…yeah, I am.” She’s afraid he’s going to ask her if she’s safe beyond pregnancy, and she doesn’t think she can handle that. “I better go,” she says, rubbing her hands on her thighs. “Roy-” she stops short. Usually she tries not to use Roy’s name. But Jim doesn’t even flinch. “He’s expecting me,” she finishes. She won’t ask to stay, she won’t.

“Right.” He stands, gesturing for her to precede him. When they reach the door, he bends down to collect her coat, holding it out for her. Her breath catches in her throat at the gesture and she feels like she’s going to make an idiot of herself if she’s not careful.

After she walks through the front door she stops and turns to face him. “Jim?” she says.

“Yeah?”

She hesitates. There are so many things she could say. The words are there, right on the tip of her tongue. She’s tired and raw and god, it would be _so easy_ to say them. But all she says is, “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

He exhales on a tired sort of laugh. “Yeah. You too, Pam.”

When she gets to the car, she looks back, hoping he’s still watching. But the door is closed, and the porch light flicks off as she watches. So she starts the car and starts the lonely drive home.

*

_Simpsons quotes from the episode “I Love Lisa”_


End file.
